I suggest we open a thread with suggestions and lessons learned right after the end of FC.

*) Shall we have Fusion Cup again next year?
*) What was good?
*) What was not so good and how could we change it?
*) Are there any enhancements people would like to see?

In this discussion, Brad suggests to change the tiebreaker in the KO and have one more match to play to decide on the outcome of the clash.
He also thinks of reducing the importance of the TAG since too many players are new to TAGs.

About TAG :

1) I dont consider many persons as TAG experts... There is tons of room for progress. Most teams were pretty new... dea/hecki, Suburu/hojita, Anu/Schwen, ww/True, and some like me ommie, Patterson, womble, me, have already played TAG (like 3 years ago), but we cant say that many teams are overly trained in TAG compared to others.

2) I think TAG match is a better reflection of the strength of a team than one random player. No team has a huge margin to make a tag match unbalanced.
Then yes, some teams are better prepared because they are discussing about it... You never win a match or a tourney coming hands in your pockets

2) I agree with dea, it gives too much power to a single player.
Also, due to schedule, American-based players would be very unlikely to be the tie-breaker person...

3)I still think we need to be consistent with our 6-game format. if we play those 6 games, each of them shall count. Every game of AAT is way different, and a win on an alternative map should be rewarded.

Solutions to improve the tourney. (in the case of a 5 round Round Robin)

*) Open schedule for TAG during Round Robin.

The tag of the last round of RR has to be played during the week dedicated to the last round so that captains can consider tactical lineups according to their RR results.
The first 4 have to be scheduled/played before TD publishes the lineups for the last round.
That said, there was only 2/3 problems during the whole RR.
Main problem was again communication (within a team, or late first contact), not scheduling itself.

*) There will be a TAG Tourney in June, so that we can have another opportunity to play TAG during the year, and improve the general level. I hope for 12 teams, 16 teams is not unrealistic.

*) If people are really not happy with the "games won" tie-breaker in KO, discussion is open. I'd rather see a 5-match lineup sent from day 1 of each KO round.

Then what to play ?
My preference would go to a 2nd AAT match or US/EUR played by a player not involved in singles. We do not need more US map.

My view of the tourney :
1) Some teams really tried to vary their lineup, and to have US specialists play a bit of europe or TAG. I really liked that.
I Euroleague slightly boosted the interest for the Euro map, and that's a +.

2) Still hard to convince many players to taste AAT. But we have some new names like GFF/haxxli/Pammes. Soon Cromze I hope
Maybe we should think of creating an AAT League better than AAT championship. We could have Euroleague season and AAT league season from January to June.

I dont know why some players would not some AAT for fun. Lack of interest ? Sucks to figure out a map ? It is a tourney and I can not look bad in a tourney ? I dont want to pay ?

3) About Big Bang group maybe doing the Grand Slam in semis :
*) GASP just lost to LOL by one game, and had a chance to wrap it up in TAG.
*) Probably not the best tactical decision from PPB.
*) GANG - Guru is another story, not yet over.

When we do a preseeding, it's hard to know the involvement of every team. I personally felt like the lobby was busier during Fusion than CL.. the fact that we were playing alternative did not affect the number of observers...
Most teams were really involved and helped the tourney to be successful.

I think having All Around as one of the matches is a positive and should remain. It takes some special skills to switch from map to map and do well. Skills I apparently do not have.

Adding a 5th match for each round might make it harder to have players for each match. If that's not a problem, it *is* alot harder to be in the lobby to support your teammates is there are too many matches. And, I like the size of team. Much bigger and I think you lose some of the camaraderie.

I suggest we open a thread with suggestions and lessons learned right after the end of FC.

*) Shall we have Fusion Cup again next year?
*) What was good?
*) What was not so good and how could we change it?
*) Are there any enhancements people would like to see?

In this discussion, Brad suggests to change the tiebreaker in the KO and have one more match to play to decide on the outcome of the clash.
He also thinks of reducing the importance of the TAG since too many players are new to TAGs.

About TAG :

1) I dont consider many persons as TAG experts... There is tons of room for progress. Most teams were pretty new... dea/hecki, Suburu/hojita, Anu/Schwen, ww/True, and some like me ommie, Patterson, womble, me, have already played TAG (like 3 years ago), but we cant say that many teams are overly trained in TAG compared to others.

2) I think TAG match is a better reflection of the strength of a team than one random player. No team has a huge margin to make a tag match unbalanced.
Then yes, some teams are better prepared because they are discussing about it... You never win a match or a tourney coming hands in your pockets

2) I agree with dea, it gives too much power to a single player.
Also, due to schedule, American-based players would be very unlikely to be the tie-breaker person...

3)I still think we need to be consistent with our 6-game format. if we play those 6 games, each of them shall count. Every game of AAT is way different, and a win on an alternative map should be rewarded.

Solutions to improve the tourney. (in the case of a 5 round Round Robin)

*) Open schedule for TAG during Round Robin.

The tag of the last round of RR has to be played during the week dedicated to the last round so that captains can consider tactical lineups according to their RR results.
The first 4 have to be scheduled/played before TD publishes the lineups for the last round.
That said, there was only 2/3 problems during the whole RR.
Main problem was again communication (within a team, or late first contact), not scheduling itself.

*) There will be a TAG Tourney in June, so that we can have another opportunity to play TAG during the year, and improve the general level. I hope for 12 teams, 16 teams is not unrealistic.

*) If people are really not happy with the "games won" tie-breaker in KO, discussion is open. I'd rather see a 5-match lineup sent from day 1 of each KO round.

Then what to play ?
My preference would go to a 2nd AAT match or US/EUR played by a player not involved in singles. We do not need more US map.

My view of the tourney :
1) Some teams really tried to vary their lineup, and to have US specialists play a bit of europe or TAG. I really liked that.
I Euroleague slightly boosted the interest for the Euro map, and that's a +.

2) Still hard to convince many players to taste AAT. But we have some new names like GFF/haxxli/Pammes. Soon Cromze I hope
Maybe we should think of creating an AAT League better than AAT championship. We could have Euroleague season and AAT league season from January to June.

I dont know why some players would not some AAT for fun. Lack of interest ? Sucks to figure out a map ? It is a tourney and I can not look bad in a tourney ? I dont want to pay ?

3) About Big Bang group maybe doing the Grand Slam in semis :
*) GASP just lost to LOL by one game, and had a chance to wrap it up in TAG.
*) Probably not the best tactical decision from PPB.
*) GANG - Guru is another story, not yet over.

When we do a preseeding, it's hard to know the involvement of every team. I personally felt like the lobby was busier during Fusion than CL.. the fact that we were playing alternative did not affect the number of observers...
Most teams were really involved and helped the tourney to be successful.

So, sorry to quote all of the above comments, however I disagree with the TAG comments to some extent. TAG has many variables that make it very difficult to have a clean match and there still are some experts out there, as you stated.

For example, my first TAG match of the this tournament that I actually got to play, I played with an opponent that I wasn't scheduled with. We scheduled last minute, so there was no planning at all, and we have never played TAG before together, and only played TAG a total of less than 5 times between the 2 of us. Along with that, Carsten will freely admit he doesn't play multi, which TAG is a little more multi oriented. There was not much of a language barrier, but maybe a small one. Second, Carsten did not have a mic, so we were stuck making decisions via typing, which makes it much more difficult to talk about all possibilities during a match. Third, my computer crashed during our 2nd game, and I had to use my phone to skype as I didn't have skype on my other computer, making it even more difficult to communicate. I understand that this may be a rare circumstance, but also because of the situation, we had a major barrier to overcome, considering the experience of the other team in TAG. Not trying to make a pity party, just trying to say that TAG is the most difficult to schedule, the game people are the least familiar with, and there may be barriers with language, scheduling, and other things...when I thought this tournament was to encourage players from other countries to play with each other.

I don't like placing emphasis on other games either, but I still believe there needs to be a tie breaker, if the score is 2-2 and games won is also a tie.

I do like trucks ideas, but I also think the tournament was quite nice for the most part, and wouldn't change a lot. I would definitely allow TAG matches to start for RR right at the beginning, allowing for much easier scheduling. I like Will's suggestions as well, but don't know how many people have all of the maps available. I will agree that the team size was about perfect, so I don't want to add much either making it harder for teams, etc. I think the US/Euro may be better with a EURO by itself or with another map. Maybe a variant of Europe and map of choice by non-starter. Creating a variable of Asia, US maps, or Swiss. Could be interesting as well...but might scare people from playing in this match. I will keep thinking about that idea.

So, I think it was an interesting idea for a tournament, and I enjoyed it, except for the fact that I didn't get to play 2 matches because of scheduling conflicts with TAG. I like the emphasis on players from different countries adding a nice variable to play with people you might not normally get to play with. I think the 6 games matches are ok, but maybe play Bo7 for single matches during playoffs to avoid ties. Otherwise, I have enjoyed it. Thanks to those involved!!

Yes, it was a very unusual situation.
I would concede that there was not tons of time to design a team before Fusion.
But from what I read, it's more a lack of overall preparation, again due to unusual circumstances in your special, than the problem of TAG itself.

There's no judging... Maybe with another player that could have been anchor of the TAGs, we might not have heard of your mic pb etc...
There are plenty of multi players to contact that have decent English and French to team up with Will/Brad/Drake/GSV.

TAG resembles more 5ers than 4ers or 2er like it used to be in the past. So, it's probably harder for a 2er specialist nowadays than it was some years ago.

For the rest about the overall opinion about the tourney, agree 100%.
Thanks for the feedback, always useful !

i liked the tournament as it was/is this year
in my view it adds spice if there are 2-2 clashes without a decider-match

i think our LOL-GASP QF TAG match (MrBean/Pammes-Angel/Anu) was the best example that there is no such thing as a TAG expert..
those were Louis very first TAG matches
i did not play TAG for over a year before the Fusion-Cup, but I have some experience in TAG over the years which might be much compared to many others in fusion cup (but that might be wrong as well) because i played a lot of TAGS as it was introduced years ago
i never before played TAG with Louis, i never played TAG before fusion cup with maia as well, we played two training matches (maia/me-tom/onyx; onyx/me-tom/maia)

TAG consists of a lot of guessing-blocking-(over-/under-)estimating the opponent and just hoping and acting on shared decisions
which might be one match right, the other totally wrong
in every other game u lose if u dont connect a big ticket, but in TAG u have a partner which might bail u out if u acted stupid (as I did in giving away Van-Mon via typing in the wrong window(which would have been blocked anyway ))

therefore it might be true that the TAG match is the one where u "know the outcome" in advance (based on player strength and player experience on a map) the least - in my view therefore the best decider!
so much for my thoughts on the topic

happy easter all

to deas questions:

Shall we have Fusion Cup again next year? YES
*) What was good? - i liked most of it, especially the necessary communication between team members, the trans-national part, etc.
*) What was not so good and how could we change it?
scheduling was sometimes a problem - maybe there is a way of pairing members which suit "timely" together... = needs communication between captains (sysy is here a good example and might add useful inputs)
*) Are there any enhancements people would like to see?
not any i could formulate at the moment - maybe later on

I will leave out the 2 main issues I had because I don't think they are specific to this particular tournament. Those being the time zone difference of players and in my opinion GANG's unacceptable attitude for our match. I might address both of those in another thread if I feel like it.

TAG - I think when sending in line-ups only one player on the team should be listed. Then while scheduling with the other team, each team can pick whoever they want as a partner. That should make it a little easier to schedule. My reasoning is that TAG really could be played by 1 player (with 2 accounts). Or I could be playing with my friend/wife/monkey etc., and just tell them what to do, and that is perfectly within the rules. So why do we need 2 players listed when sending in the line-ups? The only reason I can see is to cause a headache for scheduling, and it currently helps teams who have a pair of players that play together and it is easy for them to schedule, for the rest of us not so much, especially if in different time zones.

The idea of TAG on different maps would be interesting, but run into the problem of players needing to own all the maps. Under the current tournament only 1 players needs them (for the AAT match).

US/EU - I have no idea if this should stay the same or switch to all EU or something else. So far looking at the single player championships, Asia and Swiss are almost as popular as Europe, so there might not be a need for a dedicated Europe match. I don't know if I like pairing up maps - US/EU or Asia/Swiss or any other combination. Just because someone is good at 1 doesn't mean they are good at the other. And if they are good at everything, there is the AAT match. If you do pair up, I think maybe each opponent should get to pick the map (could exclude some maps like Mega), then 3 games of each.

AAT - Having Swiss be the first map seemed to work well. And not having to play Mega seemed to make some people happy (I don't mind it).

Tie Breaker - I don't think TAG should be the first tie breaker after games in the KO rounds. I think my suggestion for NC might do well here. Basically each team picks how important each match is in the round when sending in line-ups. Example, Team A picks TAG, then USA, then AAT, then US/EU - you would then multiple their TAG result by 4, their USA result by 3, AAT by 2, and US/EU by 1. The other team would do the same thing except they would be multiplying their results by how they ranked the matches. The team with the highest sum would win. A tie probably doesn't happen very often, so this wouldn't come into play much, but would take very little effort (i.e. captains just adding a 1,2,3,4 next to the match type when sending in line-ups).

Format - If an extra match is added, then maybe each player on a team could play in any 2 events (not just TAG).

Also, maybe allow TAG scheduling to bleed into other rounds a few days, and then for the last round have a few days before the KO round starts so each round people have the same amount of time. Or for the final RR TAG match, the teams send in their TAG player early.

TAG: i like very much but i understand is better to play than to see. And, unfortunetely, is a waste of time.
According to some comments, i like the idea that TAG must be the last game to play. Maybe during weekends, maybe only if necessary. If clash is already won by a team (3-0 or 4-0 or 3-1 if 5th match added) TAG won't be played.

US/EU: IMHO must be changed. 2p US is already played and 2p EU is not the best to play on EU map.
Why not a 4p EU played with order A-B-A-B and without talkings between team players?

AAT: 6 map of 7 is too much. 5 is enough. And Asia map is a problem (=not owned) for many players.

Fusion was for me a very interesting format and that boosted my interest in TTR again

# The format

I think we can have diff format and all can be quite good.
TAG is crucial as it is very interesting (more to play, but if u ask your team their ticks its also interesting to watch) so lets keep it.

USA/EU - i like it (from what ive read most dont). I think its a good format to have a mixed map from the 2 classic ones. Its uncommon to have a super expert in both (truck, chris and i wouldnt say more...sorry to those who were not included) so i like it. I think just EU is not the best format, as i see it as map losing players, but maybe thats just my biased idea.

AAT - LOVE IT! LOL! But i disagree with some details here. I think if it's a AAT we should play all maps, even if the majority dislike some (there are users that play Mega very well - not my case). I disagree also with the fixed start on Swiss map. I think it should be random. (either the top seed team has the advantage of picking the map, or favouring the lower seed and the lower team has it - fine both ways). I just think that is not fair in a 6 game AAT that u must play Swiss (i like the map, i think i play it decently but i understand that some users would prefer the others) and that i'm not allowed to have start in Swiss if it's my desire.

USA - I could dropp this, still it's the consensual map. All teams have experts in USA. Altough if the majority wishes to replace it i would go for another mixed map - options like BC/Swiss, Swiss/Asia would be good since i consider those better maps than others.

# Scheduling
I back what Angel wrote (i think in League A thread). No need for rigid rules. Lets bend it. Allow users to play freely. People just have to be aware they need to play till the RR ends. I'm fine with free schedule for TAG as it is the hardest to combine.

# Rank/Seed
Well i've in USA (2p+USA) people tend to say that ranking doesnt reflect real strenght for FUSION it was worse.
I cant really say the best Double for TAG since its underplayed. I cant say who's the best playing AAT since i dont have any real expert in all 7 maps, so hard to predict.
Then u add USA and USA/EU. In USA/EU maybe its easier to have a favourite, but in USA.....
It's a long story the ranks, i honestly dont give it much value. If u are ranked low well just beat the high ranked team and it's fine

Decider: I agree that the Tag result should not be the decider. But why not a decision in only one EU tag or Asia tag (if all players have the Asia map)?

If a single's game should be the decider: I love Truckers idea of picking a player from your opponents. That's spicy. Maybe you should pick out two players from your opponents. Then the other team still has a small decision. Scheduling shouldn't be a problem then.

Well! We have 2 new 'records'.
1) All teams from the same RR-group in semis.
2) All 'founders/organizers' are in semis :
Sysy - BTB
Onyx - LOL
Qorlas - CF
dea - GANG

About the format, my preferences :
- USA Survivor (see below)
- EU only
- Asia only
- Swiss only
- AAT
- TAG (if played on different maps, teams should have the possibility to select also different players)
e.g.
TAG US : player A - player B
TAG EU : player A - player C
TAG AS : player C - player D

USA Survivor: played on US map, 2er, between 3 players from each team.
Game 1 : Player 1 Team 1 - Player 1 Team 2 (let's assume P1T1 wins)
Game 2 : Player 1 Team 1 - Player 2 Team 2 (P1T1 wins again)
Game 3 : Player 1 Team 1 - Player 3 Team 2 (P3T2 wins)
Game 4 : Player 2 Team 1 - Player 3 Team 2 (P2T1 wins)
Winner = Team 1.
Start for Survivor? Alternate or losing team has the start.

Format: I agree with Truck. If an addition needs to be made, make it a combo of Asia/Swiss.
1. US
2. EU
3. Asia/Swiss
4. AAT
5. TAG

TAG: Keep it as it is, but allow flexible scheduling...free for all of RR. I think some people have discovered this variant is not as easy as it looks. My teammates who were introduced to this have become big fans. It's fun and challenging at the same time.

Seeding: We'll never come up with something perfect, and trying to come up with a calculation that considers each variant would be too complicated. To me, the perceived rankings seemed to be ok. I thought the Atomic group might have been a more difficult group since all teams were beating each other, but... Things worked out the way they did - no big issue if you look at the details of the clashes. Maybe Guru's mistake was not including kostas

Survivor has it's place in it's own tourney. Legoupil wanted to organize that in June possibly?

I like the idea of changing the singles to a bo7 in KO so there are no ties.

If you don't like ties in matches,just play a single game then. Replay if you happen to tie the game.
If you buy the logic that luck evens out and reasonably good players who are both paying attention to their games will result in 3-3. Then I say the best of 7 simply results in whomever got start in game 1 will win.

But, before you all get upset with me. I realize that luck doesn't always even out within the scope of a match. I also realize that not all players are equal, nor is each player playing as well as they are able every day or every game.

---
Personally, I like having an even number of matches simply because two teams CAN tie 2-2. It places more emphasis on winning every game you can in your matches. Fewer potentially meaningless games means more interaction in the lobby and more attention for each game in the match.

------------
Regarding EU slot. I thought doing US/EU was a bit contrived. Yet, I appreciate the variation of requiring some ability to adjust thinking to another map in the middle of a match.

Just thinking out loud. Hope this moves the conversation forward rather than backward...

There was no understatement here... 2 matches were not played at the time of my post, Guru still had chances to win the match. Nothing to read in between the lines like some thought I was aiming at... (and nothing to do with Carsten's smileys )

WASA GSV3 wrote on Sat, 30 March 2013 08:39

GANG-Hecki écrit le Sat, 30 March 2013 13:46

Onyx, Sysy and the other founders did a great job.

Well! We have 2 new 'records'.
1) All teams from the same RR-group in semis.
2) All 'founders/organizers' are in semis :
Sysy - BTB
Onyx - LOL
Qorlas - CF
dea - GANG

I am not sure what the intent of that comment is, would you please explain (pm is good) so that we don't have more misunderstandings...

TAG
Playing all the maps, I obv. like Will's idea... but would GURU, amogn others, be able to present a TAG Euro/Asia team?
About Asia, tag would only be butchery anyway...in 3 moves you can block all the east-west connection...Some cities are too easy to kill (who wants to play TAG with Vladivostok-Lhasa, Krasnoyarsk Singapore, Samarkand Mecca and Xi'an Taipei ?)

Some are mentioning low skills in TAG USA : Who here has played TAG games, 2er Asia and multi Asia games enough ?
Why making TAG more complicated at the moment before finding ways to reinforce it?

Schedule ? 34 TAGs were played, only 3 matches had scheduling issues, and 1 not played. Not sure the issue is really serious when players and captains are serious...

Format
We need a US match, we need to be inclusive.
I can deal with any other solution.
Ties are good in Round Robin.
In KO, it just depends on the number of matches we want to have. 4 matches help to keep the tournament 'close' like some others said.
I just would not like a bo7 in AAT, doesnt make sense.

Backing up a new format
If we are launching different matches than what we have at the moment, we need to keep them alive during the whole year.

Euroleague definitely did help to make the euro match fairly easy to fill.
To promote AAT, we are working with Q to find a way to play AAT matches during the year. A league would be better than a championship. Maybe next AAT tourney will be used to seed the players in a future league. AAT chaampionshi would then disappear to leave room for the league.
To promote TAG, we could still think of something for it.
Any other new type of match would require a training league/tourney/weekend before Fusion.

Overall
For the comments, the way you take them is a case of the glass being half-full or half-empty.

First: I like the idea of this tournament and hope for continuation. My opinion to the various disciplines:

US:
It's the main map of nearly all ttr tournaments, not necessary in this tournament. Maybe we can change to Swiss/Asia (same rules as US/EU)US/EU:
I like it, let's keep it.AAT:
The map with most fun character. Maybe not necessary to start with Swiss. Suggestion (like in soccer or tennis): The player of the lower seeded team selects, if (s)he wants to start (or wants to start the other team) in first game or selects a special map. The other team takes the non selected part.TAG:
Can be funny, but can be boring too. I like it to play, but boring for the audience (especially tags with a playing time of 5 hours or even more - I remember the tags between GURU and ITA or GURU and GANG, brrrrr). Please be sure, that both players have skype, typing conferences cost time and nerves.TIE-BREAKER:
The suggestion, that one team can pick the tie-breaker player of the other team is a nono for me: first: what, if the selected player has no time to play (normally we have just a time window of 2-3 days for the tie-breaker)? second: then every team is looking just for "star players" to avoid weak points. Maybe both teams can offer 2 or 3 players for the tie-breaker and the other team can pick a player out of them.finally a crazy idea:
The teams nominate their tag team and the position of the single players (1, 2, 3). The maps for position 1, 2, 3 changes random every week.

If we want to improve it, I think we should know what is the priority. More strategy ? More fun ? More teams and players ? A longer tourney ?

- Having a unique map by match (Truckerteller's proposal) would privilege the stronger teams (those with a good mix of specialists of each map). Surely a fair and competitive idea and I like it.

- Having multi-maps matches (US/EU, Swiss/Asia etc...) is clearly more fun and tends to have newbies on the lineups. This year I played a US/EU match a few days after I bought the Europe map, that was really fun and enjoyable. New map experiences increase the team work, and I could have benefited of nice and good advices from my teammates. This clearly promote the non-US maps for players who are not used to play them.
Problem with multi-maps matches : that could afraid players and the tourney could be less attractive.

- I think we need a US match. I guess a lot of players would not play the tourney without it. Moreover we're a lot who enjoy watching a good old fight between 2 top players on US map !

- Not sure if we should add anything that could lengthen the duration of the tourney, like tie-breaker matches. Simple rules like this year is good to me.

- Not sure if we should add anything that could enlarge the number of players by team, like having 5 matches by clash. That's a risk to have less teams subscribed next year...

- About TAG : I like the idea of having a multi-map TAG. Like Sysy said, Asia could be a real nightmare, imho not playable. I'd like to try a Europe TAG. Mega could be good too, maybe less strategic than classic US, maybe more fun !
About the schedule issues with TAG : we have many solutions ! In addition to those already mentioned, I'd suggest to the captains to select players available on weekends ! About connection issues : that's the risk with any online game, we cannot invent rules to prevent that !